Co-becoming and co-healing in regenerative grazing practice: a longitudinal study using photography and poetic inquiry

Abstract

Agricultural landscapes and producers face the complex challenge of producing food while preserving and improving environmental health. For some producers, alternative practices such as regenerative agriculture offer opportunities to meet environmental, economic, and social goals. Often, studies following these producers focus on the period of practice adoption, which limits our understanding of landscape-human relationships in these systems to an early and unsettled stage. In this study, we revisit Australian livestock producers and landscapes fifteen years after initial interviews to observe longitudinal relational “co-becomings.” We use arts-based methods of photo-based interviews, repeat photography, and poetic analysis using I-Poems to capture these co-becomings through the eyes and words of the participants. Our findings demonstrate patterns of long-term strengthening of relational trust and healing between grazier and landscape, which we present in paired photography and poetry. These graziers’ stories provide insight into the relationships between graziers and landscapes in the years post-adoption, challenging linear and short-term narratives of practice persistence in the alternative agriculture space. The findings extend our understanding of grazier experiences with regenerative practices beyond the initial transition period. Through our innovative use of arts-based methods, we also explore new ways of knowing and communicating the human-landscape experience.